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Submission + - Rust 1.0 released (rust-lang.org)

Submitted by TopSpin
TopSpin writes: Rust 1.0 has appeared and release parties in Paris, LA and San Francisco are taking place today. From the Rust Programming Language blog; `Today we are very proud to announce the 1.0 release of Rust, a new programming language aiming to make it easier to build reliable, efficient systems. Rust combines low-level control over performance with high-level convenience and safety guarantees. Better yet, it achieves these goals without requiring a garbage collector or runtime, making it possible to use Rust libraries as a “drop-in replacement” for C.'

Submission + - The Fallout from a Flickr DMCA Takedown

Submitted by
Maddog Batty
Maddog Batty writes: "Dave Gorman ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gorman ) a UK comic and Flickr user recently received a DMCA takedown notice for one of his own pictures (copy http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgbalancesrocks/6800943616 ) which had become rather popular — 160,000 views + lots of comments. The takedown was in error (from a porn company) and Flickr allowed him to repost the image. However, the fallout ( http://gormano.blogspot.com/2012/03/if-this-picture-looks-bit-familiar-it.html ) is that all the original comments are now lost and the many links to the original picture are now broken. Sure Flickr needed to remove the image, but surely there should be a way to reinstate it keeping all the original comments and links?"
The Military

Submission + - DARPA-Funded "Cheetah" Breaks Speed Record For Legged Robots (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Boston Dynamics, a Waltham, Massachusetts technology firm and DARPA contractor, announced Monday that it’s broken the speed record for running, legged robots. Its new four-legged creation is Cheetah, a robot that can run at 18 miles an hour, far faster than the 13.1 miles per hour record set by MIT in 1989. The video it's released shows Cheetah running on a treadmill, but the company hopes to both increase the robot's speed and take it onto outdoor terrain in the near future.

Boston Dynamics rose to fame with its four-legged cargo robot Big Dog which showed an uncanny ability to walk over terrain and recover its footing even when it slips or is kicked. The firm followed up with Petman, a two-legged prototype that applies the same technology to human-style walking.
Games

Submission + - Next-gen game controllers tug at thumb tips (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Engineers at the University of Utah have designed a new kind of video game controller that not only vibrates like existing devices, but pulls and stretches the thumb tips in different directions to simulate the tug of a fishing line, the recoil of a gun or the feeling of ocean waves. “We have developed feedback modes that enhance immersiveness and realism for gaming scenarios such as collision, recoil from a gun, the feeling of being pushed by ocean waves or crawling prone in a first-person shooter game,” said the lead researcher on the project, adding he hoped the technology would be adopted in the next generation of gaming consoles.
Google

Submission + - Google's Rules of Acquisition (xconomy.com)

Submitted by
waderoush
waderoush writes: "For many startup entrepreneurs, getting acquired by Google is the dream exit. But these days Google is getting a lot more discriminating about what kinds of companies it buys — and a lot more careful about how it integrates newly acquired teams. This article offers an in-depth look at how Google achieves a two-thirds success rate with acquisitions, and why things still occasionally go south. 'The return on our acquisition dollars has been extraordinary,' says vice president of business development David Lawee, Google's M&A czar. But Google insiders say it still takes a lot of work to make sure acquired startups go the way of Android (the mobile operating system, acquired in 2005) and not Aardvark (the social search site, acquired in 2010 and shut down in 2011)."
Biotech

Submission + - Magnetic Levitation Detects Proteins, Could Diagnose Disease

Submitted by LilaG
LilaG writes: Not just a way to transport trains at high speed, magnetic levitation could find use in diagnosing disease. Researchers at Harvard have shown that they can detect proteins in blood using MagLev. The researchers, led by George Whitesides, use levitation to detect a change in the density of porous gel beads that occurs when a protein binds to ligands inside the beads. The lower the bead levitates, the more protein it holds. The method (abstract of paywalled article) could work for detecting disease proteins in people’s blood samples in the developing world: The magnets cost only about $5 each, and the device requires no electricity or batteries. Because the beads are visible to the naked eye, researchers can make measurements with a simple ruler with a millimeter scale.
NASA

Submission + - NASA Readies Discovery Shuttle For Final Flight (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
gabbo529
gabbo529 writes: "After 38 trips, 352 days in orbit and more than 5,600 trips around the Earth, the space shuttle Discovery is preparing for its final launch this week. Since its creation, it has flown to orbit more than any other craft. It has set a number of precedents including first craft to feature a female shuttle pilot and female shuttle commander (Eileen Collins), the first African American spacewalker (Bernard Harris) and the first sitting member of congress to fly in space (Jake Garn).

In its final foray into space, the Discovery will set another precedent when it flies the first humanoid robot to fly in space, Robonaut2."
The Military

Submission + - DARPA Open-Sources Military Vehicle Design (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: The army's secretive technology division has been collecting dozens of ideas for the design of its in-the-works rescue vehicle via a social-media contest — relying solely on the power of the crowd to get the next big thing built. Local Motors of Chandler, Ariz., is running the competition, officially known as the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle (XC2V) Design Challenge, through March 10. It’s not so different from when multiple users edit a page on Wikipedia, Local Motors CEO John Rogers said. “Effectively, we want to co-create all aspects of a vehicle,” Rogers explained. “The Wikipedia method of co-creation is really not far off from the way we talk about it."
Science

Submission + - Secrets of a Mind-Gamer

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "We've all heard of people who claim to have "photographic memories." Now Joshua Foer writes in the NY Times magazine (reg. may be required) that a "skilled memory" can be acquired and proves it by explaining how he trained his brain to became a world-class memory athlete winning first place in the speed cards competition last year at the USA Memory Championship by memorizing a deck of cards in one minute forty seconds. According to Foer, memory training is a lost art that dates from antiquity. "Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories," writes Foer. "It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics." Foer says that the secret to supermemory is a system of training and discipline that works by creating "memory palaces" on the fly filled with lavish images, painting a scene in the mind so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. “Photographic memory is a detestable myth. Doesn’t exist. In fact, my memory is quite average," concludes Ed Cooke who recently invented a code that allows him to convert every number from 0 to 999,999,999 into a unique image that he can then deposit in a memory palace. "What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly.""

Comment We don' need no stinkin' okzigen! (Score 1) 397

by luxuryluke (#12559747) Attached to: ISS Oxygen Generator Fails for Good
[Hand striking cheek] We all know that when the oxygen generators start failing, the carbon dioxide generators fail to operate as well. Isn't the ISS large enough that there is a Hollywood section developed by the gen-xers at NASA to house an Oxygen Bar stacked with hotties? Everytime you release carcinogens, god kills a rainforest cat.

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